This thesis maintains that Victorian social cohesion depended to a significant degree on
drink. In Norwich and other urban centres, population growth led to an expansion of the
supply of alcoholic drink. Inadequate sanitation and water supply problems meant that beer
answered a dietary need for a liquid that was safe to drink. Alcohol provided depressant
comfort in the face of poverty and squalor for the working class. In these circumstances,
most social and political functions were connected with the public house. Most public
houses in Norwich experienced sufficiently long periods of publican stability to have
played an important role in the development of working-class communities. At a time of
acute housing problems, the public house provided both a public space and relief from
squalor.
In Norwich and elsewhere, the urban elite used working-class dependence on drink to their
own political advantage at election time through bribery, treating, and the control of
organised gangs of `roughs'. These traditional practices were eventually proscribed by the
government at Westminster but proved difficult to eradicate in Norwich.
There was little overt interference with the infrastructure of drinking in Norwich. Although
Norwich had the highest density of drinking places to population in England, the city could
boast the lowest rate of drunkenness. This infrastructure was effective not least because
brewers were key members of the urban elite and were influential in the Watch Committee
that controlled the policing of the city. However, the Temperance Movement developed as
a consequence of the challenge to traditional Christian ethics presented by the consumption
of drink in this new urban context. By 1901, Norwich was becoming a more sober,
compassionate and just society, but this was not due to the victory of Temperance but
rather to a shift in the `structure of feeling' that placed more emphasis on social
responsibility.